


Beauty in the greatest tragedy

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [20]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People like to say that she’d been running her castle on Takodana for a thousand years, since anyone who knew the real truth was long gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty in the greatest tragedy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



People like to say that she’d been running her castle on Takodana for a thousand years, since anyone who knew the real truth was long gone. It didn’t matter to Maz Kanata personally, since this only added to her air of mystery, a useful tool to possess when one ran the biggest stomping ground for smugglers and pirates in the Western Reaches.

It was all about respect, with those guys. And it was hard for a tiny female to garner respect from big burly men more than twice her height if she didn’t have any sort of reputation backing her up.

Really now. How did they think she managed to run the whole place by herself without any bouncers?

Men.

While it _was_ true that Maz had been alive for a long, long time – she certainly wasn’t alive during the New Sith Wars a thousand years ago, and she was very thankful for that. The _castle_ itself dated from that era, but Takodana had been a Jedi stronghold back then, and she could hardly have run a smuggler’s haven in the thick of a bloody battlefield. Especially not when she was Force-sensitive herself.

It was a few centuries after the end of the New Sith Wars that she acquired Takodana – and not in a gamble as one might assume, given her occupation at the time. Yes, she’d been carving a name for herself as a rare breed of pirate, one not only of the female persuasion but one of great honour, but even she hadn’t expected the Jedi to show up on her doorstep.

“A gift, we wish to offer.”

Maz blinked at the Jedi. “I’m sorry?”

“Your present headquarters, suits you, it does not.”

She stared down at the holocube he was holding out, the lush greenery of the planet visible even in the miniature hologram.

Hesitantly, she took it from him.

“Yes,” he had said, nodding slowly, as though struck by some revelation. “Guard it well, you will.”

Maz hadn’t understood what the Jedi Master had meant, until she first set foot upon the planet. It had been summer, and the trees were bursting with fresh foliage, but that wasn’t what captivated her.

The very air sang with the joy of life, and if she closed her eyes she could almost _see_ individual threads weaving through the tapestry of life, from the tiniest blade of grass to the tallest tree whose crown she could just barely see from the highest castle tower. Fainter, still, were the echoes of Jedi long passed, little flickers of warm welcome and gratitude just barely strong enough for her to sense. She might have been Force-sensitive, yes, but certainly not enough for something of that magnitude.

“Why me?” she sent, in a fit of confused frustration. “Why would the Jedi Order give up something as precious as this?”

She hadn’t expected to receive an answer, but several weeks later, there was a new message waiting for her on her comm.

“Beauty on Takodana, there is, but steeped in too much grief for the Jedi, it is. A gift, this is, because understand this, you do.”

And take care of it, she would.

**Author's Note:**

> Even more thanks to Wookieepedia.
> 
> [Tumblr~~~](starriewolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
